Managers, Not Bureaucracy, Can Increase Job Safety

Article excerpt

THE United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA) is one of the least popular regulatory programs of the
federal government. Unions think the agency is doing too little to
protect workers and is too soft on management. Business leaders, in
turn, think OSHA has issued too many regulations and that its
enforcement is too bureaucratic and onerous.

Both sets of critics are right. Most studies of OSHA conclude
that it is doing too little to promote job safety and too much in
terms of imposing costly burdens on employers. More important, OSHA
relies too much on its power to set job safety and health standards
and to fine employers when those standards are violated.

Why focus on OSHA? Because Congress has been holding hearings on
the proposed Comprehensive Occupational Safety and Health Reform
Act. The bill contains some useful changes, notably a new emphasis
on safety training. Unfortunately, its main thrust continues the
traditional emphasis on the command-and-control approach to
regulation. The Reform Act would give each OSHA inspector
unprecedented authority to shut down any activity that he or she
personally considered to be dangerous. At present, inspectors must
get court orders to take such action. Just consider that awesome
power from the viewpoint of a small employer who lacks a
professional safety department to deal with the man or woman from
OSHA.

Given the congressional attention to changing the statute
governing OSHA, this is the appropriate time to draw on the title
of the pending legislation - to make a comprehensive review of job
safety and health. Determination of the causes of on-the-job
accidents is the logical place to start.

As serious research has demonstrated repeatedly, most on-the-job
injuries do not involve violating OSHA standards. It is estimated
that about 90 percent of accidents are the result of human error.
Inexperienced workers tend to have high accident rates, as do
employees who have been away from the job for some time. During
rapid expansions in production, there is less time to train new
workers and to maintain machinery. Conversely, at lower production
rates, there is more time to teach workers about safe practices and
to repair and maintain equipment. …